


hold on to what we are, hold on to your heart

by imadetheline



Series: Breathe In, Breathe Out [25]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Study, Darth Vader Lives, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Planet Tatooine (Star Wars), Tatooine Slave Culture (Star Wars), major character death is for luke but he's already dead, tatooine as a person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:54:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29799111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadetheline/pseuds/imadetheline
Summary: febuwhump day twenty-five - car accident (ship accident)
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Tatooine, Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Series: Breathe In, Breathe Out [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140389
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	hold on to what we are, hold on to your heart

**Author's Note:**

> title from your bones by of monsters and men
> 
> forgive me but the prompt is barely in here lmao but this idea hit me. it's probably nonsense but oh well, I'm rather fond of it
> 
> also it takes place after rotj but in an au where vader lives and luke died. and some of the references to tatooine slave culture are taken from fialleril on tumblr and ao3 so go check them out

The sands of Tatooine are inevitable, unbeatable, even for Darth Vader. They swallow the remains of his ship with barely a thought. And he does not think to stop it. There’s nothing left in the wreckage anyway. But as he stares out at the endless desert, the suns setting beyond distant ridges, he wishes the sands had swallowed him too.

And they still might. His HUD flashes warnings of the shifting winds and sinking temperatures. There’s a storm coming. And he is stuck in the middle of the desert with no shelter and no way to leave. It feels more similar than he likes to admit. And as sand filters into his joints, his limbs, he considers just waiting, waiting for death.

But no, he had promised Luke. Leia is alive, is trying to run a weeks-old government while still stamping out the old one. And Vader had pulled himself from the ashes of Luke’s death for her alone. She deserves better. He’d promised to help, not to appease the anger in her dark eyes, but to honor the memory of all those he’s lost, failed. So he pulls his gaze from the sinking suns and turns back to the memory of civilization.

And yet Tatooine may still be his end, so many years after he thought he’d escaped. This planet he has hated for years, has tried to forget, to cut away from himself with bloody knives as he did with his transmitter so long ago. But it’s shackled to him, bound into his bones in the way he still knows the shifting of the sand, hears the whispers of the slave language on the wind and understands… how he still looks to the skies for gods that flew from his mother’s lips and took up residence in his eyes. 

Tatooine is her own master, subject to no one, despite the many that slave away on her surface. Vader is no different than those slaves. He has never been free, not really--trading one master for another; he knows that now. Luke had taught him that--before he’d died in Vader’s arms. And now it seems Tatooine--his first and final master--has called him home, the suns sinking behind the horizon.

The sand whips up around him as he walks. With the slightest touch from the Force, he holds it back, watching it create a bubble around him, obscuring the hills. Sand storms are deadly on Tatooine, and Vader hopes this one is no different, but still he keeps walking.

It’s quiet and empty, even in the Force. Everything stops a meter around him on all sides where walls of wailing sand rise up to meet him. It’s all the same.

Vader credits the emptiness in his heart that he doesn’t even stop walking when the image of Luke materializes beside him, even as his chest screams with grief. The sands of Tatooine have always been harsh. He senses the pulsing ball of light following along with him, but he doesn’t look, can’t look.

And yet suddenly, the boy is before him, hovering there, smiling softly, blue eyes glowing beneath hair that blends into the desert, and Vader finally recognizes the pulsing light behind Luke’s eyes. It’s the light, not of his son, but of that strange nothingness before his birth, the light of the twin suns, and the sand beneath his feet. It is the light of Tatooine, long familiar, in the shape of his son. His captor in the form of his savior. Vader wants to roar.

“You’re not real,” he grits out, still holding the sand at bay.

Luke only smiles, “You know that I am.” And Vader does. He had once been the Sky-walker, the Unfettered. Of course, he had known her light. But she has no right to his son, the son he would have swept from this place if only he had known of him.

Vader tries to push past Luke, but the figure stays in front of him, never leaving any steps in the sand. “You’re-” He stops, reminding himself that this is  _ not _ Luke (no matter how much he wishes it was). “He’s dead.”

The smile never leaves Luke’s face, blue eyes bright, too bright, “So are you.” The sand whips in to fill the spaces between his words. “In all the ways that matter.”

Vader can’t look at him, can’t look at the face of the son he failed. The son who’s right; Luke had brought him back to life after years of emptiness, and with his death, the emptiness had returned.

But he just pushes on, “You’re not him.”

Luke only inclines his head and does not deny it.

So Vader continues on, trying to ignore the growing ache in his chest whenever he catches sight of Luke walking next to him and has to remind himself it’s  _ not  _ Luke. It’s harder with every step he takes, the sand building around him and sparking pain everywhere it can reach.

Finally, the words flood from his lips before he can stop them, his grief a gaping chasm. It’s not Luke, but he doesn’t care. He asks anyway, “Why?” The vocoder hisses when his voice breaks, but he continues, “Why did you trust me?” 

Why had Luke thrown away his blade? Why had he trusted a father--that had only ever shown him pain--to save him? Why, why, why,  _ why _ ? Vader’s heart aches with the weight of it.

Luke smiles sadly and gestures to the desert around them, reaching a hand for the wall of sand, letting his fingers disappear into it, his blue eyes watching the grains slip through his hand. “You are a child of Tatooine, the same as I am.” He turns back to Vader; his eyes are too bright for a human’s. “You know why.”

Memories, memories of his mother holding him close, whispers of family.  _ Family is all we have. It is the only thing they cannot take away. You are a Skywalker, a son of the desert and of the sky. Do not forget, my child. _

He’d lost the name to fire and rage; he’d forgotten. But Luke hadn’t. His son had held it tight, gripped the promise of family--and all the words for it in the language of the slaves--between his fingers, and looked to the skies, had whispered the same names of gods that Anakin had once done--and hoped. And his hope, the sun trapped beneath his skin, had driven Luke across the galaxy. 

_ Family. Found-again. _

Vader looks back to Luke, glowing and strong and bright-eyed and the definition of alive, and then the boy smiles and his figure drains into sand, blowing away in the wind. Vader catches his hand before he can reach for the swirling dust all around him in search of someone who isn’t there, pulling it back to his chest and wishing he still had the ability to cry.

But he doesn’t, so he keeps walking, understanding fighting with grief in his chest. And eventually, the sand storm abates, grains falling back to the ground, and still, Vader keeps walking through the night, the stars blinking above him.

The town that he finds is small, narrow streets and alleys as he walks slowly through it, the light of dawn just beginning to creep over the horizon. He steps past a small house, catching sight of a small blond boy through an open window playing with a small toy ship, and he pauses. 

The woman that materializes next to him doesn’t even cause him to turn his head. She’s in the form She prefers instead of that of his son now, and he already knows what that form looks like--dark-skinned and crowned in gold with eyes like twin suns, who all slaves tell stories of: powerful and unpredictable and Her own master with a light pulsing in Her chest. Some say She is beautiful and terrible: their captor who shifts the sands beneath their feet to keep them chained here. Others tell tales of Her grief over the fate of Her children, that She will one day send someone to free them: a Rain-Bringer, one of the suns themself come down from the sky to break the chains of all who toil on Her surface.

Tatooine is a chaotic storm of contradictions, but She has never hidden it from him, not Anakin, who grew up with Her light in his chest, his veins. But Vader has long tried to forget that light, has hated Her for the constant pull to Tatooine, for the bonds wrapped around his heart.

“It is not me who keeps you chained here, Skywalker.” Her voice is as rough and unforgiving as the desert sands, but She knows him, as She always has. Still, he does not turn, gaze fixed on the boy playing with a smile on his face in what Vader knows are slave quarters. He does not try to contest the name.  _ Skywalker _ . He is not Anakin anymore, nor truly Vader. But he does not know who else to be, so he lets Her call him what She will. 

“You know of what I speak.” Her voice softens, like wind whistling through the canyons. “You have ignored it for too long.”

Whispers fill the Force: screams and tears and laughter and pain. Over them all rings the echoes of a promise, a promise made in hope--a hope that his son had carried in abundance. Anakin had once had that hope, had looked at his fellow slaves, the ones he was leaving behind, and made a promise: a promise of freedom, spoken in their language, to share his hope with them. And then he had never returned, had left it unfulfilled.

A hand caresses his cheek--flesh under Her hand for only a moment--and She turns his head to her. Her smile is blinding, Her eyes achingly familiar, and he leans into the blistering heat of Her touch.

“Cast off your chains, my child.” Her hand falls from his face, and She steps back, “Go, Rain-Bringer, Skywalker.” Her voice is unbreakable, “ _ Be free _ .” And then She’s gone, dissolved into sand and the warmth of the sun’s rays now shining brightly over the hills, casting the houses in gold.

And Vader inhales slowly, letting Her warmth--the warmth of the planet that had raised him, and his mother, his son--fill his lungs… and Skywalker breathes out. For if he can no longer be Anakin, nor Vader, he will reclaim the name that his mother bore, and his son: the name of his family.  _ Found-again _ .

<<<>>>

It doesn’t take long. The town is small, and Skywalker is powerful. There are more towns and more people, but here, in the middle of the streets, for a moment, he watches people dance and sing, the language of his people no longer a whisper but a song--strong and powerful and  _ free. _ They are free. And soon, they will  _ all  _ be free.

He feels a tug on his cape, and he looks down. It’s the boy, the boy from the window with the toy ship. He’s grinning, his blue eyes wide, and for a moment, Skywalker feels a whisper of light on the breeze, the light of a different boy, eyes bright and full of hope. The memory of a hand rests on his shoulder, forgiving and gentle before the wind sweeps it away. Skywalker smiles down at the boy by his leg as his mother comes and sweeps him away into the celebrations.

The sand shifts beneath his feet, and he glances to the sky. Clouds have gathered, and with a rumble, it begins to rain. He feels the chains around his wrists, the ones he’s carried all his life, fall away with the water that pours down around him. And Skywalker smiles, bright and unfettered, for the first time in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> If you guys liked it leave a comment. They make my day! Seriously I love reading them so please leave me one cause they motivate me to write more! if you guys have ideas for other stories send me an ask on tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/imadetheline) or just yell about stuff with me. Info about me and all my other tumblrs are [here](https://infoabtmaddie.carrd.co/#)


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